SOCIAL CLASS INEQUALITY - PATTERNS AND TRENDS

Question 1

What did Karl Marx argue about social classes?

Answer 1

there are two social class divisions:
Bourgeoisie - owned means of production such as factories and other businesses
Proletariat - ‘the subject class’ employed by the ruling class to produce goods and services

Question 2

What is the Hope-Goldthorpe classification?

Answer 2

John Goldthorpe researched into social mobility and distinguished three main classes, subdivided into seven occupational classes
Service class
1. Higher professionals, high-grade administrators, managers of large companies and large proprietors
2. Lower professionals, higher-grade technicians, supervisors of non-manual workers, administrators, small business managers
Intermediate class
3. Routine non-manual workers (clerical and sales)
4. Small proprietors and self-employed artisans (craftspersons)
5. Lower-grade technicians and supervisors of manual workers
Working class
6. Skilled manual workers
7. Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers

Question 3

What is the National Socio-Economic Classification?

Answer 3

1. Higher managerial and professional
2. Lower managerial and professional
3. Intermediate
4. Small employers and own account workers
5. Lower supervisory, craft and related
6. Semi-routine
7. Routine
8. Long term unemployed and never worked

Question 4

What are criticisms of the NS-SEC?

Answer 4

Those who do not have work but have inherited unearned wealth are not included in the NS-SEC classification
Obscures important differences in pay and status as their categories are ‘too wide’ e.g. college principals and headteachers have been placed in the same category
Ethnicity and gender may be more important in bringing about inequalities and divisions in shaping identity

Question 5

What are precariats, according to Standing?

Answer 5

Members occupy low-skilled and low-paid jobs (often minimum wage)
Jobs are often insecure, for example, they are likely to be on zero-hour contracts
Precariats often enjoy fewer rights than others who are entitled (e.g. sick pay, holiday pay, pension rights)
Have no occupational identity or community to take pride in as they are always moving in and out of jobs
Forced to do jobs that they normally would not want to do
Standing argues that the precariats are not an underclass as they do not spend enough time together in order to construct a shared identity

Question 6

What did Savage find about class position?

Answer 6

In-depth, unstructured interviews with over 170 people in Manchester
Only a minority of his interviewees had the confidence to express their class position in an articulate way
A second group of interviewees preferred not to identity themselves with a social class as they saw themselves as individuals

Question 7

What did Marshall et al find?

Answer 7

53% of their sample identified themselves as ‘working class’ despite the fact that most of them were in white-collar jobs (ie middle class jobs)

Question 8

What are life chances?

Answer 8

Max Weber (1948) - initially defined ‘life chances’ to describe how some members of society had better opportunities than other, which may include:
The chance to live a long and healthy life
The chance to achieve good educational qualifications and go on to higher education
The chance to have a fulfilling and well-paid job and avoid being made unemployed
The chance to own your home in a desirable area, with low risk of crime and with access to open spaces and leisure facilities
The chance to enjoy paid holidays, and a range of leisure activities
Weber saw life chances as closely linked to a person’s social class background

Question 9

What are key points and statistics and patterns and trends of income in social classes?

Answer 9

Between 1979-1997, income inequality between the rich and the poor widened until it was at its most unequal since records began at the end of the 19th century
OECD, 2015 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development)

Question 10

What did OECD find?

Answer 10

an organisation of the world’s 27 leading economies and found that the UK if the fifth most unequal in terms of income distribution
The average net income of the richest 10 per cent in the UK is almost is almost ten times larger the the net income earned by the poorest 10 per cent
The top 1 per cent of income earners increased their share of the UK’s income from 6.7 per cent in 1981 to 12.9 per cent in 2011

Question 11

What is wealth?

Answer 11

defined as the ‘stock’ resources or possessions of a person or household at a fixed point in time

Question 12

What did ONS define as wealth?

Answer 12

defines the following as forms of wealth when compiling official statistics:
Property wealth
Physical wealth (cars, jewellery etc)
Financial wealth
Private pension wealth

Question 13

What key names are there for wealth patterns and trends for social class?

Answer 13

The Birmingham Police Commission Report (Rowlingson and Mullineux)
Sunday Times Rich List

Question 14

What did the Birmingham Police Commission report find?

Answer 14

Rowingson and Mullineux
Concluded that there are many different ways in which wealth inequalities occur, for example some accumulate wealth but don’t spend it, and some invest in land and property
Observed that wealth affects physical and mental wellbeing as well as education and job opportunities
Also observed that wealthier people had greater political infuence

Question 15

What did the Sunday Times Rich List find?

Answer 15

The richest 200 families had between them a total wealth averaging £225 billion between 2008 and 2010, an average of £1 billion each

Question 16

What are problems with measuring wealth?

Answer 16

Defining what is classed as wealth is complex
Calculating the value of assets is difficult
Obtaining data about wealth is not easy - wealthy people are often very careful when it comes to concealing their wealth in order to avoid taxation. Very wealthy people often have assets in different countries meaning it is difficult to track what they actually own
Distinguishing wealth from income can also be difficult
Much of the wealth in the form of shares in businesses in the UK are now owned by institutions such as pension funds, banks and insurance companies rather than private individuals

Question 17

Are wealth inequalities based on age or class?

Answer 17

People tend to accumulate wealth as they get older
For most middle income earners, their major sources of wealth are likely to be their homes and their pensions; in both cases the value of these tend to increase as people reach the age of retirement
Those who have a much higher and middle incomes have much more chance in accumulating wealth than those on lower incomes

Question 18

Are wealth inequalities based on meritocracy?

Answer 18

People who have talent and also those who save their money or invest prudently are rewarded by building up more wealth (e.g. Lord Alan Sugar, who came from a working-class background built a business empire)
Tony Atkinson (2013) - an increasing proportion of national income now comes from inherited wealth

Question 19

What are key names for poverty patterns and trends in social classes?

Answer 19

Wilkinson and Pickett, Sutton Trust, The Trussell Trust, Mack and Lansley Breadline Britain (Gordon et al)

Question 20

What did Wilkinson and Pickett argue about poverty?

Answer 20

poverty, however it may be measured, brings various socio-economic disadvantages, including debt, poor diet, weak immune systems and therefore higher levels of illness and disability, low life expectancy, high divorce rates, low educational achievement, poor housing, depression and a disproportionate number of suicides

Question 21

What is absolute poverty?

Answer 21

A lack of basic essentials such as adequate nutrition or food, clothing, housing and fuel
Working out what is considered ‘essential’ and its cost is both complex and controversial as experts rarely agree on what might be considered essential
Jonathan Bradshaw and colleagues (2008) - defines a minimum acceptable income by calculating what is needed to afford an acceptable living standard based on a costed list of items deemed essential
Fails to take into account that what is regarded as poverty changes over time: poverty is a relative concept because what is a luxury today may be a necessity tomorrow, as fashion, acceptable standards of housing and general standards of living change
Only allows for a person’s physical needs to be taken into account but ignores social needs such as participating in social and leisure activities

Question 22

What is relative poverty?

Answer 22

Defines poverty in terms of the normal expectation or living standards of a society at a particular time
As societies change and become more or less affluent, the idea of what poverty is will also change
If a person or family is unable to achieve a moderate standard of living, this approach suggests they should be defined as poor
Heavily criticised by Conservative politicians and New Right sociologists as there is a disagreement about what items should be considered as necessities
Critics argue that the relative approach is confusing inequality with poverty and because social expectations of the standard of living is changing, it is impossible to eradicate this type of poverty

Question 23

What did the Sutton Trust find?

Answer 23

shows that FSM children are less likely to achieve five or more A*-C grades at GCSE compared with children not claiming FSM

Question 24

What did the Trussell Trust find?

Answer 24

provides foodbanks across the UK and suggested that 4.7 million people were in food poverty - meaning they did not have the income to afford a healthy diet - in 2014 based on the dramatic increase in numbers attending their foodbanks since 2008
The austerity cuts in welfare benefits by the coalition government of 2010-2015 were seen to be partially to blame for this situation

Question 25

What did Mack and Lansley do, and what is the Consensual Measure of Poverty?

Answer 25

Asked large samples of people what items or activities they believed were ‘customary approved and of vital importance to social life’
Mack and Lansley classed something as a ‘necessity’ if a consensus among the respondents was achieved, that is, if over 50% of the sample said it was essential
Identified 22 items to include in their ‘deprivation index’ including a damp-free house; fresh fruit and vegetables daily; a warm, waterproof coat and so on
Mack and Lansley - decided that those respondents who lacked three or more necessities were ‘poor’ whereas Gordon et al. decided to set their poverty line at the lack of two or more necessities

Question 26

What did Breadline Britain find?

Answer 26

survey estimated that 11 million o the UK population lived in poverty in 1990 (up from 7.5 million in 1983) while Gordon et al. estimated that 24% of the UK population (approximately 14 million) were poor

Question 27

What two ways is social mobility measured?

Answer 27

intergenerational mobility: mobility between the generations
Intragenerational mobility: movement between classes by an individual during their working life

Question 28

What are open and closed societies?

Answer 28

An open society is where there are few obstacles to those with talent rising out of their social class
A closed society is where there is little or no social mobility

Question 29

What key names are there for social mobility patterns and trends for social class?

Answer 29

The Oxford Mobility Study (Goldthorpe and Halsey), Roberts, Savage, Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, Wilkinson and Pickett

Question 30

What was the Oxford Mobility Study by Goldthorpe and Halsey?

Answer 30

In a period after WW2, there was considerable upward social mobility and much less downward social mobility
Over ⅔ of the service class had started off in either the working class or service class
Possible explanation for this could be the introduction of free secondary education after 1944 and the expansion of opportunities in higher education
Argues that changes in the occupational structure were more significant
Mid-twentieth century - reduction in size of working class as there were fewer manual jobs and an increase in size of the intermediate and service classes
Increase in absolute social mobility - an increase in the number of working-class boys who got better jobs than their fathers, mainly because there was more room at the top of society
Relative mobility - the chances of a working-class boy getting a service sector job compared with their lower middle-class and upper middle-class peers - had not changed

Question 31

What did Robert argue about social mobility?

Answer 31

Also used data from the OMS and NCDS to analyse changes in social mobility in the 20th century
Working class continue to contract and intermediate and service classes to expand - provided opportunities for upward mobility from working class
Chances of escaping working class did not increase - 55% of men with working class origins stayed in that class
Chances of working class men rising to service class did increase from 16 to 26%
NCDS showed that service class sons were more than twice as likely to end up with service class jobs compared to those from working class
Both studies showed that service class were recruited from diverse origins, including 40% from working class but around ¾ of working class in both studies came from working class background
Explainable as there has been more upward than downward social mobility

Question 32

What did Savage argue about social mobility?

Answer 32

The chances of someone moving a long way up the earnings ladder had improved by over 20% compared with the 90s
Found little overall mobility
Low earners in both the 1990s and 2000s were likely to remain low earners
In the 90s, 3% of low earners significantly improved their earnings
In the 00s, 6% of low earners saw an increase in their earnings

Question 33

What did the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission find?

Answer 33

2015 - observed that around 80% of individuals born in the early 1980s (and who are in their 30s today) are in a different social class from their parents but the commission acknowledges that this upward social mobility is in short range

Question 34

What did Wilkinson and Pickett argue about social mobility?

Answer 34

Countries like the UK that experience high degrees of income inequality have the lowest levels of social mobility
In contrast, wealthy European societies such as Sweden have a lower degree of income inequality compared with UK and higher levels of social mobility

Question 35

What are statistics about education and the social classes?

Answer 35

Private schools educate 7% British children and yet, research from Sutton Trust in 2015, suggests that private school pupils make up nearly ¾ of the top judiciary, over ⅔ of the British-educated Oscar winners, 6/10 top doctors, over half of the top journalists, over 50% of the Cabinet and ⅓ of all Members of Parliament

Question 36

What are statistics and health and the social classes?

Answer 36

Officials statistics on morbidity and mortality indicate that if you’re from a manual or working class background, you are more likely to die younger, age faster and encounter long term chronic and mental illness
Over the last 25 years, life expectancy has risen for both men and women in all social classes but overall has risen more for higher social classes
Marxists argue that the health gap is a direct result of the wealth gap caused by the unequal organisation of capitalist society

Question 37

What are the patterns and trends for social classes?

Answer 37

life chances - Weber
Income - OECD
Wealth - ONS, The Birmingham Police Commission Report, Sunday Times Rich List
Work and employment - Standing, OECD
Poverty - Wilkinson and Pickett, Sutton Trust, The Trussell Trust, Mack and Lansley Breadline Britain (Gordon et al)
Social mobility - The Oxford mobility study, Robert, Savage, Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, Wilkinson and Pickett
Education
Health